Who
are the victims here?By Wahida
Valiante, Globe
and Mail, 6 November 2000

The death toll in the
Middle East is overwhelmingly Palestinian, yet Israelis play the injured
party. Islamic activist WAHIDA VALIANTE wants a reality check

When I hear a Canadian ask why the
Palestinian children are out in the streets in these times of violence,
my heart sinks. Overwhelmed by the absurdity of the question, I find myself
sad and fearful. As is so often the case where Israel is involved, the
victim is labelled as the villain. The real question is, "Where are the
Palestinian children supposed to exist?"

They cannot go to school. According
to The Jerusalem Post, more than 30 Palestinian schools have closed in
the past month, and three have been transformed into Israeli military installations.
Approximately 13,000 Palestinian students and 500 teachers are unable to
get to school because Israeli authorities have imposed closure on Palestinian
areas.

Palestinian homes are targets of
Israeli shelling and have become places of physical, psychological and
emotional trauma. Bethlehem, Beit Sahur, Beit Jala and Jericho have all
been struck with missiles from Israeli helicopters aiming at houses. Samir
Tabanja, aged 12, was killed by an Israeli helicopter gunship while playing
in the "safety" of his backyard on Oct. 1.

While Palestinian children are virtually
imprisoned in their own homes, the children of their Jewish settler neighbours
play under the protective gaze of Israeli soldiers stationed on Palestinian
land.

I recently observed the effects of
the "peace process" when I visited the children of Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah,
Gaza, and east Jerusalem. These children know first-hand the effects of
military and economic oppression. There is hardly a family that has not
experienced torture, imprisonment or economic hardship.

Most of these children live in refugee
camps in houses with corrugated roofs and cramped living spaces. Often,
they do not have running water.The children lack adequate schools, health-care
facilities, hospitals, social services, public parks, swimming pools, or
recreation facilities. In the camps, the streets are their playgrounds,
often with open sewers and waste flowing freely. They have seen no other
reality.

What seems so obvious to rest of
the world escapes the Zionist and pro-Israeli mind. The relegation of Palestinian
and Arab to nothing more than "animals" (as at least one Canadian columnist
has described them), makes the atrocities that are occurring more acceptable.

For the past two generations, the
people of Palestine have been stripped of their history, their livelihood,
and their future. Now it seems as if Israel wants their lives, so it can
ultimately take their land.

What strikes me as even more absurd
is the blind approval so many Jews give Israel's current actions. This
was demonstrated recently by the convergence of more than 1,200 delegates
who have travelled there to show their support.

What, as a Canadian, am I to conclude
from the overwhelming demonstrations solidarity from my country? Most of
our Jewish organizations have not bothered to refute the death toll exacted
on the Palestinians -- more than 135 dead as of this past weekend, about
90 per cent of them Palestinian.

Nor have they condemned the Israeli
military's use of force. Quite the opposite: The Canadian Jewish community
"feels angry and betrayed," according to Moshe Ronen, CJC president, over
Canada's support of a UN resolution condemning "excessive use of force
against the Palestinians, resulting in injury and loss of human life."
(That resolution also suggests that the inciting factor in the current
wave of violence was a visit by the Likud leader, Ariel Sharon, to a Muslim-controlled
holy site in Jerusalem, accompanied by more than 1,000 Israeli soldiers).

Yet, in effect, what Prime Minister
Jean Chrtien was being told in a recent visit with 30 representatives of
the Jewish community was: "Look away. It is better for us and it will be
better for you. And if you don't, Mr. Prime Minister, we are going to hurt
you at the polls."

Surely, the Jewish community cannot
dictate what is right and wrong. Or can it?

Being Canadian is a privilege and
an honour. It carries with it certain responsibilities. One of the most
crucial and important is to uphold the rule of law, justice and fairness
both at home and in the world. Canadians with the help of visionaries such
as Pierre Elliott Trudeau have worked very hard to establish this country
as a just, inclusive and peaceful country.

If Canadians try to rationalize the
organized oppression and killing of a civilian population because these
are the actions of a country that is considered to be the only "democratic"
country in the Middle East, then I am very afraid. I am afraid that it
is only a matter of time before I will be considered the "other" here in
Canada, simply because of my ethnic and religious affiliations.

The Canadian Islamic Congress has
been careful throughout this period of unrest in the Middle East to stay
as neutral as possible. We have been asked if we condemn actions on both
sides of the equation. Our answer: We feel all human life is sacred and
nobody should be killed. This is an obvious moral stand, and should not
need to be restated. We are on the side of peace. We are pro-justice and
pro-peace, not anti-Palestinian or anti-Zionist.

Nobody should try to justify the
deaths of the children of Palestine, let alone condemn their grieving parents.
Palestinian parents care just as much for their children as Jewish parents
care for their 18-year-old sons and daughters in the Israeli Defence Forces.

Some Jewish analysts fear that the
Jewish delegates from abroad who showed their support for Israel last week
ended up sending an unsettling message to their countries of origin. Indeed,
they did.

Here in Canada, some Canadians are
feeling distanced by the "official" Jewish stand regarding what is right
and just for the Palestinians and their children.